1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic catalog system for using a computer network to provide component information, a management operation apparatus of the system, and a management operating method.
2. Description of the Related Art
As a system for using a computer network to provide component information, there is an electronic catalog system. Moreover, “ISO13584 (Parts Library)” is established as international standards for constructing the electronic catalog system to electronically provide component information on Internet. In the “ISO13584”, an electronic catalog is comprised of a dictionary and product data, a data structure is given by unifying the dictionary and product data, and thereby sharing/reusing of the component information is intended.
For a component classification in the dictionary defined by the “ISO13584”, “component class” is hierarchically represented by a single tree structure. Here, the “component class” indicates a kind of product such as a random access memory (RAM) and processor, and each “component class” has its “property”.
The “property” means a technical characteristics possessed by a component. For example, “an operation frequency” and “memory capacity” can be defined as property to describe “RAM class”
The “property” of a certain “component class” is inherited by a sub “component class”. Moreover, a unique ID called “BSU code” is attached to the “component class” and “property” so that the class and attribute can univocally be specified. Furthermore, each “component class” has a “supplier code” which describes an ID of supplier who defines the component class itself.
The “ISO13584” provides a framework as the electronic catalog. On the other hand, international standardization of an actual dictionary has also proceeded. For example, in “IEC61360” in the international standards, an upper hierarchical part of the dictionary in an electric/electronic technical field, that is, a standard dictionary of a general part concerning the “component class” and “property” is defined. Thereby, a person who prepares a component catalog of each company extends individual detailed “component class” and “property” on the basis of the “IEC61360”, and can prepare respective product data.
Moreover, for the product data prepared as described above, a user of the electronic catalog can trace a classification hierarchy of the “component class”, refer to a property value, focus on necessary components, and search for the desired component.
In recent years, in such a trend, some systems have been developed in conformity with the “ISO13584”.
However, in the “IEC61360” as the international standards concerning the dictionary, a regulation concerning a principle for preparing the dictionary exists, but there is no regulation for measuring a degree of conformity of the dictionary extended by the user with respect to the existing standard dictionary. Moreover, there is no guideline concerning extension of the existing standard dictionary. Therefore, the extension of the dictionary by each catalog preparing person based on individual interpretation cannot be regulated. Even on the basis of the same standard dictionary, there is a high possibility that dictionaries become remarkably different from one another depending upon the degree of conformity. For example, the dictionary in which only terms used in the standard dictionary are applied and an independent classification hierarchy is constructed is entirely different from the dictionary in which the classification hierarchy of the standard dictionary is also applied. Therefore, when the dictionaries different in conformity degree from one another are opened to the public from various catalog information providers, a remarkable dispersion is generated in a quality of extended dictionary. There is also a problem that it is very difficult to secure compatibility between dictionaries.
When the individually extended dictionary is distributed, and further extended by the other party, originality of the dictionary becomes ambiguous. There is a fear of situation in which the originality cannot be protected by copyright. A second problem remains that it is difficult to secure a compensation for labor/expense borne by the person having prepared the standard dictionary.
Therefore, there is an urgent need for a countermeasure against these problems.